Mellitus was the first Bishop of London, the third Archbishop of
Canterbury, and a member of the Gregorian mission sent to England to
convert the Anglo-Saxons. He arrived in 601 AD, and was consecrated as
Bishop of London in 604. Pope Gregory I sent Mellitus a letter now
known as the Epistola ad Mellitum, which suggested the conversion of
the Anglo-Saxons be undertaken gradually and integrate pagan rituals
and customs. Following the deaths of his patrons, King Sæberht of Essex
and King Æthelberht of Kent, Mellitus was exiled from London and forced
to take refuge in Gaul. Æthelberht's successor converted to
Christianity the following year, and Mellitus returned to England.
Unable to return to the pagan inhabitants of London, he was appointed
Archbishop of Canterbury in 619. During his tenure, he was alleged to
have miraculously saved the cathedral, and much of the town of
Canterbury, from a fire. After his death in 624, Mellitus was revered
as a saint.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mellitus>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1479 BC:
Thutmose III became the sixth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of
Egypt according to the official chronology, although during the first
22 years of the reign he was co-regent with his aunt, Hatshepsut.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thutmose_III>
1877:
Unable to resolve a series of disputes over the Balkans in the
aftermath of the 1876 Bulgarian April Uprising, Russia declared war on
the Ottoman Empire, starting the Russo-Turkish War.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War_%281877%E2%80%931878%29>
1915:
The Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire began with the arrest and
deportation of hundreds of prominent Armenians in Constantinople.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide>
1916:
Irish republicans led by teacher and political activist Patrick Pearse
began the Easter Rising, a rebellion against British rule in Ireland,
and proclaimed the Irish Republic an independent state.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proclamation_of_the_Irish_Republic>
1961:
The Swedish warship Vasa of 1628 was salvaged with a largely intact
hull in Stockholm.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_%28ship%29>
1967:
The Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 1 crashed in Siberia during its return to
Earth, killing cosmonaut Vladimir Mikhaylovich Komarov, the first
in-flight fatality in the history of spaceflight.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Mikhaylovich_Komarov>
1993:
The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a truck bomb in
London's financial district in Bishopsgate, killing one person,
injuring 44 others and causing £1 billion in damages.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Bishopsgate_bombing>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
multiculturalism (n):
The characteristics of a society, city etc. which has many different
ethnic or national cultures mingling freely; political or social
policies which support or encourage such coexistence
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/multiculturalism>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
One need not hope in order to undertake, nor succeed in order to
persevere.
--William the Silent
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_the_Silent>